Middlemarch
her former sense of young companionship with one who was cleverer than
herself, yet seemed ready to be swayed by her. Poor Dorothea before her
marriage had never found much room in other minds for what she cared
most to say; and she had not, as we know, enjoyed her husband’s
superior instruction so much as she had expected. If she spoke with any
keenness of interest to Mr. Casaubon, he heard her with an air of
patience as if she had given a quotation from the Delectus familiar to
him from his tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly what ancient
sects or personages had held similar ideas, as if there were too much
of that sort in stock already; at other times he would inform her that
she was mistaken, and reassert what her remark had questioned.
But Will Ladislaw always seemed to see more in what she said than she
herself saw. Dorothea had little vanity, but she had the ardent woman’s
need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul. Hence the
mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette opened in
the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny air; and this
pleasure began to nullify her original alarm at what her husband might
think about the introduction of Will as her uncle’s guest. On this
subject Mr. Casaubon had remained dumb.
But Will wanted to talk with Dorothea alone, and was impatient of slow
circumstance. However slight the terrestrial intercourse between Dante
and Beatrice or Petrarch and Laura, time changes the proportion of
things, and in later days it is preferable to have fewer sonnets and
more conversation. Necessity excused stratagem, but stratagem was
limited by the dread of offending Dorothea. He found out at last that
he wanted to take a particular sketch at Lowick; and one morning when
Mr. Brooke had to drive along the Lowick road on his way to the county
town, Will asked to be set down with his sketch-book and camp-stool at
Lowick, and without announcing himself at the Manor settled himself to
sketch in a position where he must see Dorothea if she came out to
walk—and he knew that she usually walked an hour in the morning.
But the stratagem was defeated by the weather. Clouds gathered with
treacherous quickness, the rain came down, and Will was obliged to take
shelter in the house. He intended, on the strength of relationship, to
go into the drawing-room and wait there without being announced; and
seeing his old acquaintance the butler in the hall, he said, “Don’t
mention that I am here, Pratt; I will wait till luncheon; I know Mr.
Casaubon does not like to be disturbed when he is in the library.”
“Master is out, sir; there’s only Mrs. Casaubon in the library. I’d
better tell her you’re here, sir,” said Pratt, a red-cheeked man given
to lively converse with Tantripp, and often agreeing with her that it
must be dull for Madam.
“Oh, very well; this confounded rain has hindered me from sketching,”
said Will, feeling so happy that he affected indifference with
delightful ease.
In another minute he was in the library, and Dorothea was meeting him
with her sweet unconstrained smile.
“Mr. Casaubon has gone to the Archdeacon’s,” she said, at once. “I
don’t know whether he will be at home again long before dinner. He was
uncertain how long he should be. Did you want to say anything
particular to him?”
“No; I came to sketch, but the rain drove me in. Else I would not have
disturbed you yet. I supposed that Mr. Casaubon was here, and I know he
dislikes interruption at this hour.”
“I am indebted to the rain, then. I am so glad to see you.” Dorothea
uttered these common words with the simple sincerity of an unhappy
child, visited at school.
“I really came for the chance of seeing you alone,” said Will,
mysteriously forced to be just as simple as she was. He could not stay
to ask himself, why not? “I wanted to talk about things, as we did in
Rome. It always makes a difference when other people are present.”
“Yes,” said Dorothea, in her clear full tone of assent. “Sit down.” She
seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her,
looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material, without
a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring, as if she were under
a vow to be different from all other women; and Will sat down opposite
her at two yards’ distance, the light falling on his bright curls and
delicate but rather petulant profile, with its defiant curves of lip
and chin. Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers
which had opened then and there. Dorothea for the moment forgot her
husband’s mysterious irritation against Will: it seemed fresh water at
her thirsty lips to speak without fear to the one person whom she had
found receptive; for in looking backward through sadness she
exaggerated a past solace.
“I have often thought that I should like to talk to you again,” she
said, immediately. “It seems strange to me how many things I said to
you.”
“I remember them all,” said Will, with the unspeakable content in his
soul of feeling that he was in the presence of a creature worthy to be
perfectly loved. I think his own feelings at that moment were perfect,
for we mortals have our divine moments, when love is satisfied in the
completeness of the beloved object.
“I have tried to learn a great deal since we were in Rome,” said
Dorothea. “I can read Latin a little, and I am beginning to understand
just a little Greek. I can help Mr. Casaubon better now. I can find out
references for him and save his eyes in many ways. But it is very
difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way
to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too
tired.”
“If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake
them before he is decrepit,” said Will, with irrepressible quickness.
But through certain sensibilities Dorothea was as quick as he, and
seeing her face change, he added, immediately, “But it is quite true
that the best minds have been sometimes overstrained in working out
their ideas.”
“You correct me,” said Dorothea. “I expressed myself ill. I should have
said that those who have great thoughts get too much worn in working
them out. I used to feel about that, even when I was a little girl; and
it always seemed to me that the use I should like to make of my life
would be to help some one who did great works, so that his burthen
might be lighter.”
Dorothea was led on to this bit of autobiography without any sense of
making a revelation. But she had never before said anything to Will
which threw so strong a light on her marriage. He did not shrug his
shoulders; and for want of that muscular outlet he thought the more
irritably of beautiful lips kissing holy skulls and other emptinesses
ecclesiastically enshrined. Also he had to take care that his speech
should not betray that thought.
“But you may easily carry the help too far,” he said, “and get
over-wrought yourself. Are you not too much shut up? You already look
paler. It would be better for Mr. Casaubon to have a secretary; he
could easily get a man who would do half his work for him. It would
save him more effectually, and you need only help him in lighter ways.”
“How can you think of that?” said Dorothea, in a tone of earnest
remonstrance. “I should have no happiness if I did not help him in his
work. What could I do? There is no good to be done in Lowick. The only
thing I desire is to help him more. And he objects to a secretary:
please not to mention that again.”
“Certainly not, now I know your feeling. But I have heard both Mr.
Brooke and Sir James Chettam express the same wish.”
“Yes,” said Dorothea, “but they don’t understand—they want me to be a
great deal on horseback, and have the garden altered and new
conservatories, to fill up my days. I thought you could understand that
one’s mind has other wants,” she added, rather impatiently—“besides,
Mr. Casaubon cannot bear to hear of a secretary.”
“My mistake is excusable,” said Will. “In old days I used to hear Mr.
Casaubon speak as if he looked forward to having a secretary. Indeed he
held out the prospect of that office to me. But I turned out to be—not
good enough for it.”
Dorothea was trying to extract out of this an excuse for her husband’s
evident repulsion, as she said, with a playful smile, “You were not a
steady worker enough.”
“No,” said Will, shaking his head backward somewhat after the manner of
a spirited horse. And then, the old irritable demon prompting him to
give another good pinch at the moth-wings of poor Mr. Casaubon’s glory,
he went on, “And I have seen since that Mr. Casaubon does not like any
one to overlook his work and know thoroughly what he is doing. He is
too doubtful—too uncertain of himself. I may not be good for much, but
he dislikes me because I disagree with him.”
Will was not without his intentions to be always generous, but our
tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled before
general intentions can be brought to bear. And it was too intolerable
that Casaubon’s dislike of him should not be fairly accounted for to
Dorothea. Yet when he had spoken he was rather uneasy as to the effect
on her.
But Dorothea was strangely quiet—not immediately indignant, as she had
been on a like occasion in Rome. And the cause lay deep. She was no
longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting
herself to their clearest perception; and now when she looked steadily
at her husband’s failure, still more at his possible consciousness of
failure, she seemed to be looking along the one track where duty became
tenderness. Will’s want of reticence might have been met with more
severity, if he had not already been recommended to her mercy by her
husband’s dislike, which must seem hard to her till she saw better
reason for it.
She did not answer at once, but after looking down ruminatingly she
said, with some earnestness, “Mr. Casaubon must have overcome his
dislike of you so far as his actions were concerned: and that is
admirable.”
“Yes; he has shown a sense of justice in family matters. It was an
abominable thing that my grandmother should have been disinherited
because she made what they called a _mesalliance_, though there was
nothing to be said against her husband except that he was a Polish
refugee who gave lessons for his bread.”
“I wish I knew all about her!” said Dorothea. “I wonder how she bore
the change from wealth to poverty: I wonder whether she was happy with
her husband! Do you know much about them?”
“No; only that my grandfather was a patriot—a bright fellow—could speak
many languages—musical—got his bread by teaching all sorts of things.
They both died rather early. And I never knew much of my father, beyond
what my mother told me; but he inherited the musical talents. I
remember his slow walk and his long thin hands; and one day remains
with me when he was lying ill, and I was very hungry, and had only a
little bit of bread.”
“Ah, what a different life from mine!” said Dorothea, with keen
interest, clasping her hands on her lap. “I have always had too much of
everything. But tell me how it was—Mr. Casaubon could not have known
about you then.”
“No; but my father had made himself known to Mr. Casaubon, and that was
my last hungry day. My father died soon after, and my mother and I were
well taken care of. Mr. Casaubon always expressly recognized it as his
duty to take care of us because of the harsh injustice which had been
shown to his mother’s sister. But now I am telling you what is not new
to you.”
In his inmost soul Will was conscious of wishing to tell Dorothea what
was rather new even in his own construction of things—namely, that Mr.
Casaubon had never done more than pay a debt towards him. Will was much